Students failing due to unawareness of requirements

[kateausten]

Have you ever had a student whose misunderstanding or unawareness of something resulted in MAJOR grade ramifications?  Do you consider it wrong by any means to allow a student to fail a course they would otherwise make a B or C in because of this?

 

Without going into too much detail, I am in charge of my own section of a class - I give the final grades, not a prof.  At-home online quizzes that are automatically graded make up 30% of the grades.  I've been overextended this semester and have just been checking to make sure that most of the students were doing them (to make sure that I did make it clear that they're mandatory), not examining the grades in detail, so I just noticed while putting together final grades that a certain student has not done a single one.  Today, days after the final and a few days before grades are due, he emailed me to ask "Are we graded on the quizzes?"  With zeros on every quiz, the highest he can get is a 70, and I think that he will probably be below 60.

 

This isn't the first time that this student has been the only one in the class unaware of an important instruction.  He seems to have a problem following instructions in general, will often raise his hand to ask things that I have already covered a few minutes before and such, and I would not be surprised if some sort of disability were at play, but without a pass from the accessibility center I can't allow that suspicion to factor into my treatment of him.  All of the other students did the quizzes regularly enough that I am certain they knew that it was a mandatory part of their grade.  Any way that I could help him would have to be extended to the entire class, and while I could open all the quizzes up for another 48 hours, that seems unfair to the students who may not be checking their emails to be aware of such an option because the semester is over, all finals are done, etc.

 

I feel bad because he did attend class regularly and it may not be his fault that he can't follow instructions - the quizzes form a participation grade, so ironically one of my best students attendance-wise will fail because of his participation grade.  At the same time, I don't see any fair way to handle this besides just giving him zeroes for all of these quizzes and letting him fail if that's how it works out.  Anyone been in a similar situation?

[sonamata]

I am not a teacher, just another yahoo on a message board. I do think it is fair to give him the grade that he earned. You surely would not keep your job if all you did was show up, right? You are expected to do a certain amount of work. You obviously made your student expectations clear as he was (presumably) the only student to complete zero quizzes.

Give him the grade he earned, and if he has an issue with it, the onus is on him to explain why he deserves to be treated as a special case.

[surefire]

I'm usually prone to coddling the students, so I actually surprise myself a bit with the answer: I think he needs to get zeroes on all of the quizzes, and then his grade is his grade.

 

I have been in this situation, mostly. In the classes I TA, there's a policy re: deductions for late papers: it's 5% a day - including weekends (they submit online to turnitin, so this isn't onerous) - after 5 days the paper WILL NOT be accepted. This is a policy of the institution, so I do get to say that my hands are tied on this stipulation. However, at least a few times a semester, I have students who finish and submit papers after the 5 days have elapsed - either they missed the instruction, or they really didn't believe that, after going to the trouble of writing the damn paper, I wouldn't accept it. But yeah, I don't accept the papers, they get zeroes, and they can appeal the grade - or the policy - to the undergrad admin. Final papers are worth 30%, so students HAVE failed as a result of this, and these are in cases where they actually did the work, but they did not heed the instruction. Adhering to this is a bit easier when the stipulation is IN the syllabus (it's not clear from your post if that's the case, but I assume the syllabus at least had a break-down of how their grade would be comprised, right?).

 

Inform him of his options for appeal. List all the avenues open to him (accessibility centre, doctor's note, appeal process to dean or whomever). That IS a kindness that you can offer, you know? That way, you're not just rendering the mark and walking away - you COULD just do that, but highlighting his opportunities IS a compromise that you can offer (the other compromises regarding opening up the quizzes are, as you've ascertained, not really feasible options).

 

This sucks. Sorry! Really though, you sound like a capable and compassionate TA, don't beat yourself up and don't keep thinking that you're "letting him fail". This is an opportunity to address the issue, whether it's an accessibility thing or a work habit thing. Otherwise, you're just stalling the issue and it WILL emerge again in another class, where another instructor will agonize over what to do.

[hashslinger]

Today, days after the final and a few days before grades are due, he emailed me to ask "Are we graded on the quizzes?"

 

Well, not to be too flippant, but what did he think the quizzes were for? Your own personal entertainment? He evidently knew they existed. The other students did them, so you know the failure wasn't related to your instructions or syllabus.

 

This sounds like an unfortunate situation, but you can't really do anything at this point. He came to you too late. In your reply to him, i would emphasize that. I would say that he was responsible for his own grade and that the other students had no issues with completing the quizzes on time.

 

It is basically his fault that he wasn't able to follow the instructions--even if there's some disability at play. Having a disability (if that's even what he has, since evidently it's not documented) doesn't excuse his complete inability to accomplish what he needed to accomplish.

 

I know it's hard to believe in this day and age of intense hand-holding, but you're not required to keep after all your students. I too suffer from intense guilt when something like this happens. But it's really not our fault, and there's nothing you or he can do about it at this point. Just give him the grade he earned and move forward.

Edited May 15, 2014 by hashslinger

[kateausten]

Thank you!  I'm kind of afraid to refer him to the accessibility center with the implication that it might help him with this grade.  I technically am only on contract for 3 more days.  Apparently it's a HUGE hassle to deal with contested grades here, and I don't want to spend time on it myself without even being paid for my services, or to hand it off to some already-overworked colleague to deal with.  I also feel like it's very awkward to reply to a "We are graded on this?" email with "You may want to visit the disability center" - it's a little intense of a topic to bring up over email, after the end of the semester, when the student hasn't even shown any recognition of the problem, you know?  I like the idea of bringing up the topic and inspiring him to get checked out (my ADHD wasn't diagnosed until age 20), it just seems inappropriate in this specific context.

 

I don't believe the syllabus explicitly states "The participation grade will be comprised entirely of the scores from these quizzes" because the syllabus is a generic one given to all the different sections with different teachers and we have the authority to incorporate other things into the grade if we wish.  But the quizzes are definitely mentioned in the syllabus and I said on the first day (not that they listen/remember) that their participation grade would be based on them.  There is also a place for those grades in the giant table of class grades that they can see on the course website if they want.  (I imagine he didn't look at that table until today, hence the email.)  I'm confident that it's not my fault that he was unaware, though.  I didn't have the most motivated class and would definitely have had other students skipping or at least asking "Do we HAVE to do this?" if it weren't clear. 

 

Regarding the "Are the quizzes graded?" question, I agree that it sounds a bit ridiculous, but this guy asks a lot of questions that seem, well, dumb.  He will ask equally obvious questions about classwork sometimes.  I don't know if he's just one of those people who asks questions before even attempting to think about them or if he is just unable to reason very well.  Not that this changes my obligations towards him at all, of course -- just giving some context.

Edited May 15, 2014 by kateausten

[nugget]

I think that if I were in your situation I would respond to the email by confirming that the quizzes are indeed factored into the final grade and reminding the student that you explained this on the first day of class and it is also stated in the course outline.

 

If he attended every class, he had the opportunity to approach you after class or during the break to inquire about the value of the quizzes if the course outline was unclear in any way. 

 

Perhaps the student would be eligible for disability services. But in order to register, students need a diagnosis and doctor's note outlining their condition and accomodation needs. Then students need to make an appointment with an advisor before officially registering. All of these steps could take weeks to complete (especially if a formal assessment is required, as is often the case for learning disabilities) and might only benefit the student next fall, assuming the student has a disability and is interested in getting an assessment and diagnosis. 

 

Perhaps consider sending a general email to all the students in your class with a list of useful services on campus such as counselling, health services, the writing centre, and the disability office. I'm in a human service field and all of my profs provide a list of useful services on campus in their course outlines in case a student needs such services and isn't aware of their existance. You may want to consider doing this in the future for all of your courses to cover your bases if a similar situation occurs. 

Edited May 15, 2014 by jenste

[dstock]

I've never TA'd or taught a class. 

 

Failing this student seems harsh if he's been attending and participating regularly and doing the other assignments.

 

Could you make the participation component: 50% your subjective view of the students' effort and attendance(or actual attendance if you've been keeping track), and 50% quiz grades?   (for all students)

[hashslinger]

I've never TA'd or taught a class. 

 

Failing this student seems harsh if he's been attending and participating regularly and doing the other assignments.

 

Could you make the participation component: 50% your subjective view of the students' effort and attendance(or actual attendance if you've been keeping track), and 50% quiz grades?   (for all students)

 

The quizzes were worth 30%, though. That's a significant assignment. Not doing them, in this situation, seems like it would the equivalent of not turning in a major paper or showing up for a final. So that's how I would look at this: the student didn't complete a major course requirement. 

 

Changing the weight of participation grade after the fact seems unfair to the students who DID do the quizzes. Even if the percentage breakdown seems to give too much weight to the quizzes over other forms of participation (and I'm not saying it does), it would be unwise to make a major change like that after the class is over.

[rising_star]

They get the grade they earn. I've been teaching for several semesters and have something similar to this every single semester. This semester, it was a student that needed a certain grade for the course to graduate but also didn't turn in a bunch of the easy homework assignments (similar to your quizzes). It hurt the student's grade and I basically wrote back saying that there's nothing to be done at this point except to pay more attention to instructions in the future. You should do something similar. I would NOT under any circumstances intimate/suggest/hint that the student might need disability accommodations in my correspondence because that is overstepping your bounds and could get you in trouble for discrimination. Better safe than sorry in that regard. I also wouldn't reopen the quizzes or do anything special for this student. I've had several students over the years with perfect attendance who got a C- or worse in the course because they didn't turn in the work, didn't study for exams, or for other reasons unknown/unclear to me.

 

Your student's failure to follow instructions leads to a certain grade. If you change the standards for those grades or the instructions now, you're basically rewarding the student for not paying attention. Is that really the system you want in your classroom? If it is, so be it. But, it's definitely not the system I want. I usually make analogies about real world work situations to help students. Say, for example, your student is a fast food restaurant cook. Student/cook missed some crucial instructions about food temperatures or storage or how to cook a certain item. Does the manager or supervisor reward that student/cook with a promotion? No, they probably get fired for their inability to follow directions.

[TakeruK]

I agree with everyone that said that you should not change the grade and stick to your original scheme (especially if you published this scheme somewhere). I also agree that I don't think this is the right time/place to suggest the disability services. I would just answer the question with yes, they are worth 30% of the grade and that this was made clear. If the student protests this, and you want to be kind, you could wait until after you publish the grades and then send them a link to your University's webpage for the process to appeal a grade. 

[kateausten]

 

Changing the weight of participation grade after the fact seems unfair to the students who DID do the quizzes. Even if the percentage breakdown seems to give too much weight to the quizzes over other forms of participation (and I'm not saying it does), it would be unwise to make a major change like that after the class is over.

 

That was my thought exactly.  The "quizzes" consist of questions about their participation during the past week (attendance, preparation, did they play with their phones, etc) and I told the students that I have the power to override the scores they give themselves and would do so if they lied and inflated their scores - not that my own observations would make up 50% of the grade.  I don't even feel comfortable giving a subjetive grade at this point because I haven't been paying close attention and taking objective notes and my  memories would be unintentionally biased by my opinion of each student.  As long as the students are honest - and they usually are - the quizzes are a more objective assessment of participation than my own observations would be (because those would depend on how stealthily students can play on their phones, have off-task conversations, etc).  I also told them on the first day that I have had A students make Bs and B students make Cs in the class because they skipped some of these quizzes, so those that listened knew the consequences.  (I'm not that surprised that this student did not, as he doesn't seem to hear most of what I say in class unless it's directly to him, but as everyone has pointed out, that's his own issue until he has a documented disability pass stating that he has a legit reason.)

[reinhard]

Technically professors can change the weight of a student's grade if he or she feels the student deserves it. In my university it's a common practice.

 

One of my friend missed two assignments in a math class and he he should have lost 15% of his grade. He aced the final (beating everyone else) and the prof gave him a 90 (he was supposed to have gotten an 85 for his final grade).

Edited May 18, 2014 by reinhard

[danieleWrites]

Nearly every semester some student has approached me to suddenly go back and do enough of the work (including quizzes) in order to get a better grade. One of the methods of approach is to work the unawareness angle. Oh, I didn't know the reading responses were worth points. I did the reading, though. Can I do them and get credit? My answer is no. Students who claim they weren't aware of something that is clearly listed on the syllabus have no one to blame for this but themselves.

Something one of my comp/rhet profs said that makes too much sense: you can't grade intent. You don't know what the student's intentions were; you can try to guess, but there is no realistic way to measure intention. You can only grade what there is before you.

I think this idea applies to the student or two that wanders into office hours or the email inbox near the end of the semester wondering if they can make up work they did not do when it was due and have no means of providing proof of a reasonable excuse for not doing and/or turning the work in. I only know what they tell me (and students often lie, but not always) and I can only measure their truthiness by what is there. I know teachers who make exceptions and I know teachers who don't. This is what I do know: you can only do what you think is most fair to everyone in the class, and that will usually be the right thing to do.

[klondike]

That was my thought exactly.  The "quizzes" consist of questions about their participation during the past week (attendance, preparation, did they play with their phones, etc) and I told the students that I have the power to override the scores they give themselves and would do so if they lied and inflated their scores - not that my own observations would make up 50% of the grade.  I don't even feel comfortable giving a subjetive grade at this point because I haven't been paying close attention and taking objective notes and my  memories would be unintentionally biased by my opinion of each student.  As long as the students are honest - and they usually are - the quizzes are a more objective assessment of participation than my own observations would be (because those would depend on how stealthily students can play on their phones, have off-task conversations, etc).  I also told them on the first day that I have had A students make Bs and B students make Cs in the class because they skipped some of these quizzes, so those that listened knew the consequences.  (I'm not that surprised that this student did not, as he doesn't seem to hear most of what I say in class unless it's directly to him, but as everyone has pointed out, that's his own issue until he has a documented disability pass stating that he has a legit reason.)

 

Wait. Maybe I am alone in this, but knowing the "content" of these "quizzes" changes everything in my mind.

 

I think everyone above was assuming these were *course-related* quizzes - questions about the material etc. that actually have something to do with testing knowledge. Were that the case, I would agree with everyone saying do not give him the credit. But if the quiz is really only questions about participation, maybe this is just my ignorance of other education systems, and no offense to you, but that seems like such a worthless exercise. While an instructor's observations of student participation will undoubtedly be somewhat biased, can we really assume most students will be completely objective in such a quiz? Not knowing the exact content or structure of your course or the quiz, couldn't a student who was not asked a question (etc.), but was completely unprepared for the class, easily give themselves a high mark without any way to disprove it?

 

My point is, this other system does not sound that much less (inherently) flawed than ordinary participation-grading. And as you say, you can override the students' responses anyway when you know they do not reflect their actual participation. When you know the student has been one of the best in attendance, and has asked questions (even redundant ones), it seems so trivial to "let him fail" because he did not fill in a form that is basically a substitute for an instructor's observations (it honestly sounds like death by bureaucracy). 

 

Obviously he still didn't follow instructions, and shouldn't just receive full marks for this part of his grade. But it does not seem inappropriate to give him credit for the amount of "points" toward attendance in the quizzes (for example, if you know he attended 8/10 classes, and each quiz gives 2 points for attendance, give him 16 points). You know he attended, so I don't see how giving him the few participation points that equate to just attendance is "unfair" to the everyone else who has been in charge of grading their own participation, especially since (I'm guessing) you no longer have the memory/notes to go into their quizzes and correct any erroneous scores (THAT sounds much more unfair to the other students). If this grade were actually about work, I think the question would be entirely different.

 

Unrelated, but 30% of a grade is participation?!?!

[TakeruK]

I also thought the quizzes were about course content in order to check that they have been keeping up to date with readings etc. If it's just a "self-evaluation" of their participation, then I don't think it makes sense to give the student 0 out of 30% either. I think you should just go with your own knowledge of how much this person participated and then perhaps give a small penalty for not participating in these quizzes. The other "penalty" that the student suffers from not doing the quizzes is that they will just have to rely on your evaluation of their participation, instead of being able to give their own feedback about their participation levels. 

[hashslinger]

Have to agree with klondike and TakeruK. I don't think it's necessarily weird or bad that quizzes/participation are worth 30%; it's weird that 30% of the student's grade is tied to the practice of self-evaluation. Now his question of "were the quizzes graded?" makes much more sense.

[lewin]

If they're self-assigned, just give him 30/30 like the rest of the class probably assigned themselves.  

[Vene]

If they're self-assigned, just give him 30/30 like the rest of the class probably assigned themselves.  

I keep trying to think of a reason why I wouldn't give myself 30/30, but I just can't do it.